Posted on Aug 11th, 2006
by 
Alina
This is a reasearch paper I wrote for my History class last year. I hope it makes for a good read, though don't feel obligated ;)
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~Introductory Section~
The world creates the being, and in turn the being through it’s awareness and observations creates it’s world. Were it not for the world, there would be no inhabitants, and for an equal measure without the inhabitant no world would have the opportunity to brighten someone’s day.
The history of man is fundamentally tied to the evolution of human culture, which is in turn linked to perception, particularly man’s sense of sight. For without sight, people would not be able to so readily mimic each other, and mimicry is the most basic form of learning and passing culture from one generation and social group to the next. In a way, culture can be thought of as a spin-off of the human learning process, as inherited forms and patterns take on a life of their own. What began as an enhancements to survival has grown into a tapestry of ideas and customs that go well beyond what is necessary to clothe and feed the next generation.
The world is seen, humans are made to see, and sight makes us who we are. A human’s vision becomes its world. We literally build our world based on our supersense, which is sight. It’s all about vision. The brain is formed around a visual center and it is from this that we were able to make the jump which so separates us from other creatures. Over forty per cent of the brain is used to process visual data. Human history is literally a document of what was seen, believed and imagined by those able to write and/or paint descriptions of what was thought worthy of remembering. Without sight, history would be lost, and were it not for our ability to mimic nature through art and our works, we would lose much of our past.
~Part I~
Evolution of Human Sight Over the Ages
Human sight has undoubtedly undergone changes over the ages, and according to evolutionary theory, even to this day continues to modify itself to suit our most common needs. It is difficult to prove that for certain, however, because there is no way to know whether when you say, ‘Hey, look at the beautiful blue sky.’ your friend is actually seeing a red sky, because you both would call the color by the same name. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” (Shakespeare, Act 2 scene 2) Ultimately, our only means of understanding what another creature sees is by consequent behavior.
The gap in understanding we observe between individual humans grows even greater between humans and other species. “We do not know exactly what a bird sees when it is hunting for food. To have this information, we would need to have the eyes and the brain of a bird; but there is every reason to suppose that a bird’s view of the environment is similar to our own. Like humans, but unlike most mammals, birds have a poorly developed sense of smell and excellent colour vision. For us they are in many ways easier to understand than mammals even though we ourselves are mammals.” (Owen, p. 16) Humans are defined more by vision, it being our supersense, and as such, we are best able to understand visionary creatures.
We create a bias according to our given understandings and limits, where we lack in some strength of another animal, we may come to form an assumption about them that is entirely self-constructed. Sight gives us the power to understand or misunderstand others based on how we interpret what we see. This has affected, and continues to affect, our actions and therefore our history. In the same way our misunderstandings of other species influence our actions, so do our misunderstandings of other culture’s perceptions.
To understand how visual perception affects cross-cultural understanding, it is enlightening to examine visual signaling between species. We did, once upon a time, act as other animals do and it is from animals that we today may gain a more complete understanding of ourselves.
Animals, in order to make the lovely colorations and variations we often find in nature--which are really their own ways of blending in and passing on their genes--need a demanding environment. “The possibility of discovery and of subsequent death provides the arena for the evolution of deceptive strategies.” (Owen, pg. 9) Colors act as signals, as a first line of defense to animals preferring not to be eaten just that moment. There are many reasons and strategies to use coloration, some of which may include: Diversifying, Diverting, Frightening, Warning and Mimicking. Humans use these methods as well and these methods, in part, have established our relationships with other humans and have influenced each culture’s status in the world.
Some animals are visually diverse within their species, where nearly no two animals are alike. The North Atlantic Brittlestar is a prime example of this, it is so diverse (as a species) that a predator is not sure whether it is safe to digest it or not, never having seen one on previous occasion.1 Better to leave it alone, since it simply isn’t worth the risk. Humans have used this same survival strategy in battle attire; such an example may be found looking at the face paint of the Maori warriors.2
Some animals try to divert predators by playacting enough to convince their audience that they’re too weak to take off, like some rock-nesting birds who, at the critical moment, take to the wing. Or like the fox, which although being a predator, will still use diversion to outwit it’s woodland watchers by... acting the fool! One will chase his tail and bring all out of their burrow then, when his act is over, slyly snatch a witness to his moment-ago stupidity. The strategy of trickery has also been seen in humans throughout history. Take for example, guerilla warfare where a war may be carried on ‘underground’ by training civilians as soldiers and therefore making it difficult for the enemy to know who it’s looking to attack.
Butterflies and other animals subject to predation resort to last-minute “back off” signals by quickly flashing some eerie ‘eyes’ from the patterns on their wings.3 Though this may not always work on humans, I’m sure you’ve had the earwig scare as I have, reaching down to examine a seemingly harmless insect you are quick to discover some (actually rather harmless) tweezers attached to it’s rear. Now if that isn’t startling, I don’t know what is. People have often used frightening techniques in order not to waste resources, for example the Magic Gang of 1941 led by magician Jasper Maskelyne of the British military of World War II who spent much of his time during the war constructing, with his gang, magnificent works of deception and intimidation such as trucks disguised as tanks using canvas, plywood and paint.4
Warnings may range from the subtle whistling of a rattlesnake’s cone-shaped noisemaker to the simple red hourglass on a black widow’s abdomen; they let you know by their bark that they have a bite. Humans learned from studying nature what bees and hornets and wasps have utilized for centuries: that black and yellow together act as an international warning sign, one that is effective across all cultures and continents. This is why you may notice sometimes the different colors of traffic signals, the red and white of the “STOP” sign and the black and yellow “YIELD” sign are good for catching the eye and warning people of the code of law.
Mimickers are ones that may forever fool us. Some butterflies that are bitter to the taste will proudly display this fact to their predators, unaware that many outside their own race are profiting as well, animals may ‘borrow’ the warning signs of another species, and though not being the least bit dangerous themselves, will take advantage of another’s success, “...Effectively hitching a ride on the learned response of ...the other species.” (Coen, p. 50) Humans often ride on another culture’s success by borrowing associations people have with a brand or creating cheap imitations of designer originals People may claim to be good by comparing themselves to another ‘good’ brand, and ‘proving’ themselves better, thus essentially boosting their market.
There are many who utilize more than one of these fields as well, such as the Crab Spider for example.5 “The difference in sensitivity to red of vertebrates and insects is exploited by some Crab Spiders. These animals can change their colour to match the petals of flowers on which they sit, waiting to ambush insects. Their camouflage appears to be destroyed by two bright red spots, indicating to birds that these spiders are noxious. However, insects cannot see the warning spots, and to them the spider’s disguise is deadly perfect.” (Downer, p. 57) It’s amazing that an animal can evolve to play off it’s surroundings like the Crab Spider does to such advantage. That it can warn off birds and lure bugs all at once with no surreptitious change of guise is a real feat! Humans have become increasingly sophisticated through the centuries, and like the Crab Spider, have developed techniques to appear dangerous to opponents and invisible to prey. Often you may find throughout history this similar theme and aim. It is highly beneficial to one’s cause to go about undetected, as the plain-clothes policeman does when he is recognizable by other police men but not by the everyday passerby.6
Humans, like the Crab Spider, utilize more than one modality. Our easy adaptability is one of our species’ hallmarks. What doesn’t come to us by nature we learn because it is in one’s favor to learn and because others do as well. What we see around us in nature helps us to determine which tactics may be most beneficial and allows for great discoveries to be made. Peoples around the globe integrate nature and actions of other animals into their everyday life, such as with unique patterns in clothing design, for garb is often an indicator of status. Also during tough competition it is commonly found that man will resort to using tactics of other animals in warfare and business dealings. Suits of armor were created to imitate exoskeletal animals, and this new kind of clothing gave warriors a definite advantage in battle.7 Sight and observing are great tools allowing for a unique sort of competitions which has driven man slowly forward to the sorts of increasingly complex forms of competitions we find today.
These different colorations and capitalizations on color make up the intricate web upon which all relationships are based and the human eye has developed in response to this great web. The way animals literally see each other has direct impact, certainly, on how they treat, understand and/or seek to manipulate one another. This has been prominent throughout history, not only animal to animal, but race to race. “There are... eyes that can see tapestries of colors that are inaccessible to the human eye8... Beetles that appear dull to us are brightly ornamented to their species mates” (Sinclair, p. xi) These gaps in understanding create many biases where communication is lacking and we tend to miss out on the secret, encoded information. Some examples of this may include secret societies like the masons who left their mark on the dollar bill, for though research may tell us much about this mysterious group, we do not understand it until it is pointed out and explained to us.
Sight encourages action and reaction and, through this iterative process, creates the world. Sight is a remote sense which may be built upon and then projected through action to get invention. Sight comes to man as easily as breathing. We do not notice how centered and reliant we are upon it, but verily it defines us. We say ‘I see’ to mean ‘I understand’. This in itself implies that we must use sight in order to understand. Many times we do not even notice that we are using these ideas interchangeably. We use sciences and various applications of knowledge to discover things, yes, but it is by an extension of sight that we are able to make this stretch.
Sight is in no way the only forte in the animal kingdom; others are often much more prominent, such as smell. Sight just happens to be the supersense which has lifted Man to the place where he is today. Humans rely mainly on sight, so this biases us towards considering only the sight of other animals. “Sight is so important to us that it dominates the way we perceive the sensory worlds of other animals, and even dictates the vocabulary available to describe those worlds.” (Downer, p. 35) Even though we are now more aware of new phenomena outside of our senses, it is clear that our bias towards only considering visual information has limited our own understanding of the world, and therefore our behavior. We often presume to understand more than we do because of our biases, and it is from these biases that our actions are determined. For example, tobacco originated as part of a native American ritual, but removed from it’s ‘invisible context,’ smoking tobacco became little more than a habit or vice. Because we did not understand the culture it came from and we only took in what we saw, we transformed it into a terrible thing.
~Part II~
Cultural Development and Impact of Origins
No species ever remains the same, and therefore it would be difficult to trace back to it’s individual beginnings. “...A breed, like a dialect of language, can hardly be said to have had a definite origin.” (Darwin, p. 34) So while we cannot truly understand our background, we can strive to understand the origins of our bias in relation to our past encounters. Our vision is that of a wood-dweller, in any case we have reason to think that it must have once been, “The greatest sensitivity of the human eye occurs at about 555nm, which just happens to be the shade of yellow-green that matches the forest canopy, which should tell us something about our distant past as forest creatures.” (Sinclair, pg. 8) We, like other animals, once roamed the wilderness and were subject to such indecencies as we would, today, hardly believe.
How then, did man manage to rise above the other creatures to the superior place he is today so that it is man’s vision which so shapes the world? There must have been some key development, some extraordinary factor. Ever since our very separation from the natural world, we have been wondering why, why we could have gotten to the place that we are today, and not others. For this we find ourselves testing other animal’s capacities, seeking further scientific satisfaction and understanding of the mystery that is our intelligence. We look to our past for guidance, carefully analyzing themes which, from early on, set us apart. We look to religion, monarchy and empire; but the question remains: why?
From our past, we understand that, “...The muscular hind limbs of the tree-dweller became transformed into the strong supporting legs which enable man to adopt a two-legged gait. This in turn helped free the fore-limbs, already well suited for grasping, for the manipulation of objects and the making of weapons and other tools.” (Carrington, p. 167) Modern science has shown us this much, through observation, allowing us to institute our own opinions to create a story. We find that it was through clever hands and the unique perspective they lent us in the addition to sight that we were able to come to the place we are today, but that still does not explain how other primates did not.
Hands gave man the opportunity to manipulate his surroundings. Teamed with our nearly unrivaled sight, hands allowed us to collect and create memoirs of our supersense. We primates, with the ability to use our forearms, far surpass other species’ use of material objects, for few animals match us in dexterity. Our evolution has shaped history and the relative strengths and weaknesses of our senses have affected our beliefs, cultures and all scientific, technological, and spiritual achievements. We are sensitive to images in particular, as we find they inspire all sorts of creative actions; paintings, sculpture, architecture, writing, printing and several ways we humans take our unique perspectives and create a world that matches our visions.
To further delve into the very puzzling phenomena of our own remarkable capabilities and the lack of any other beings having possession of them, orangutan social groups have been studied in depth and some very fascinating discoveries have been made. Social learning up until now has been viewed as a subject of trivial importance which only produces noticeable responses in extreme situations--such as being raised by wolves from a young age--but there has been recent data in it’s favor for everyday and evolutionary life. “In humans, intelligence develops over time. A child learns primarily from the guidance of patient adults. Without strong social--that is, cultural--inputs, even a potential wunderkind will end up a bungling bumpkin as an adult... The animals that are intelligent are the ones that are cultural.” (Van Schaik, p. 66) Through geographical comparison, we have found orangutans capable of manipulating objects only if they were accustomed to seeing objects manipulated by their parents and other members of their social group. Humans have, throughout history, consciously lengthened the developmental phase of life (childhood), in order to develop ever more socially-evolved citizens for just this reason. Many of the ways humans have brought their vision to reshape the world have surely come from having seen humans build from their visions.
We needed each other, that is to say, we needed to watch the habits of others during our periods of development. Interconnectivity is a must in our ever-progressing and evolving society, for in order to get along, each society finds it necessary to watch the activities of another. This is nothing idiosyncratic to our species, but it still goes to show that one must have the distinct ability to understand others’ actions. “Formal experiments confirm the strong impression one gets from observing great apes in the wild: they are capable of learning by watching what others do.” (Schaik, p. 69) We develop with our culture, by our culture. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (Letter, Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, Feb. 5, 1675) It is necessary to base one’s progress on the status of the community one is brought up in, otherwise one can never be sure whether its ideas are of any great importance or not, and development could come to a standstill until the straggling culture is surpassed by the next. It is in a community’s best interest to develop by testing new ideas, and this kind of continual competition is a major point of what sets humans apart. Take for example, the opium wars, when China--having cut itself off from the rest of the world for half a century--was not prepared when England came into it’s life. The Chinese were helpless when they needed to defend themselves, and thus lost battles to the British.
Art and symbols are another form of development of culture. These could be considered mere indulgences of the mind seeking a reaction to what is viewed, but there is often much more going on. Artist and nature meet together to explore the purpose of human drama and life, and with this creative interplay we look back to wonder at what the past must have been like. Could people like us have existed inside the heads of such primitive cultures? We surely fancy this to be so, for they viewed and referenced the same things we do to this day, often showing the same thoughts and feelings we do, making articles of exposure to harsh conditions seem grander than they are; cavemen boldly proclaiming their victory over numerous (and grossly exaggerated) wild beasts just as we paint scenes of war and quest so romantically in our historical stories and movies to this day.
Often our romanticized tales of conquest are immortalized upon bound leafs of paper. Literature is, for many, the new vision. With everything fading away from the dramatic way it once appeared to be, we reach back again to a place far removed from where we are today. It is in us to want adventure and close calls aplenty. There is a new sort of sight in words. “We can still see embalmed in written language its simple picture origins” (Gregory, p. 147) The Egyptians’ hieroglyphics was one of the most pronounced pictographic languages. 9 Using very basic connections, such as an arm representing strength, an eye representing sight, the Egyptians wound up able to leave lasting impressions of details of their everyday life on papyrus scrolls, walls, ceramics and monuments. Perhaps culture itself is an outgrowth of human abilities that extends beyond what is needed for human survival. Mimicry and learning are essential skills that get extrapolated into art, architecture, music and storytelling.
Each animal has within its grasp a range of opportunities given it by its numerous predecessors. Each human, through sight and heritage finds in its birthright ages of revolutionary thought and experience that he/she may never have time to fully understand. Each culture feels the bounty and hardships of its environment, and it is this environment that shapes each and every human culture.
Art is one of the many lenses through which one may view the universe. “Pictures are unique among objects; for they are seen both as themselves and as some other thing, entirely different from the paper or canvas of the picture. Pictures are paradoxes... No eyes before man’s were confronted by pictures.” (Gregory, p. 32) It is from art and artistic symbols (that eventually led to literature and writing) that we came to possess the unique understanding of the way things work that we do. Without being constantly exposed to the reactions to the world that other people face we would not enjoy the expanded experience we derive from the efforts of those who come before us. This sense of culture and learning through mimicry was essential to our development and as such, sight was the key to this intelligence.
It is perhaps from picking up the charcoal one late post-mammoth-hunting afternoon that one of our earliest ancestors gave us the power of unique comprehension among the animal kingdom, “Intelligent brains could hardly have developed without eyes. It is not too much to say that eyes freed the nervous system from the tyranny of reflexes, leading to strategic planned behavior and ultimately to abstract thinking.” (Gregory, p. 13) Human actions leading to grand discoveries have combined with the outstanding ability of cultural learning to bring us rung by rung to a perilous height.
The fact that art could lend such an interesting and unique perspective on life enabled humans to become aware of how their ways of describing events affected future subsequent events. As I have said previously, the world creates the animal and in turn, the animal creates its world. This mantra is reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands”, the piece that capsulates this very paradox.10 Being and creating surround everything, and the amazing thing about that particular portrait is that it beautifully demonstrates that vision gave us the power to understand the paradox. As humans became increasingly self-aware, they developed ever higher expectations of how to shape their own appearance and that of their creations such as architecture, art, and how history is recorded and recounted.
Staring at ink blots on the wall, though being there for all to see, does not mean everyone sees the same thing.11 Much like the Rorschach ink blot experiments, a certain pattern may mean something different to each person according to what mood they are in and/or their cultural background, i.e. how they were brought up. “Unlike a real landscape, the greater ambiguities in the wall allow for a free ranging and creative mind to see novel forms that might not be arrived at by the more obvious routes... The act of staring at the wall and coming up with particular shapes clearly adds something, because one response is selected out of an enormous possible number. Interpretation is therefore not a neutral event, but a highly selective process.” (Coen, p. 47) This interpretation and the many other creative outputs we view around us are direct byproducts of our vision and ability to perceive and analyze color, patterns and shapes. The human civilization will naturally pick up new information from sight and utilize it to better itself and its situation. In this fashion, some cultures have seen their own causes to be most essential and central, leading them to believe they are the chosen ones--such as the Aryan youth movement in Germany in the 1930’s which preceded World War Two.
The inhabited world, i.e. the biosphere, is crowded by many communities and populations. You may quickly discover, in glancing around you from day to day, evidence of a great diversity of human developments. Africans, for example, evolved darker skins in order to thrive better under equatorial conditions, therefore not burning so easily in the sun. Other skin colors as well developed according to the climate inhabited. The peculiar eye shape of the Inuit tribes of Alaska was developed at a slant so as to avoid being blinded by the harsh rays of light from the sun glinting off the ice. These differences, which are profitless survival-wise in our increasingly urbanized living and working situations, become an identity flag with which people learn to relate to one another, and sometimes to discriminate against one another.
As well as natural development, all over you may find tributes to a particular race’s heritage. Much as how Egyptians developed language after things they saw, many cultures developed languages based on everyday objects and/or aspirations of their culture. These aspirations make people who they are to this very day, and it is from these cultures that we can build mental images of one another. It is therefore by these mental images that we create our world.
Through reactions of one person to another a culture is defined. “Among the peoples of the world, color has always been associated with racial pride. The art of cosmetics, in truth, originated in ancient Egypt where red dyes were used to emphasize race distinction.” (Birren, p. 6) People come to recognize these charismatic idiosyncrasies as what comprises the culture, and it is through these reactions that the race is truly defined.
Culture and history are intertwined. Through sight and reaction to the environment, each person adds to its community, i.e. through social-learning. Through reactions to other cultures, a community makes itself known to others and creates interactions which lead to the shaping of its identity. All of this starts out with one individual sharing his discoveries from sight with his fellows. Color vision makes culture, and by extension the world, what it is and the world makes us who we are.
~Part III~
The Human’s Search for Understanding: Our Place in the Cosmos
Humans have for a very long time wondered ‘why us?,’ often searching for clues among the mysteries--for example, UFOs--often coming back disappointed. Even when we find no clear answers, this is never enough to put us off completely, since there is always hope. We continue to delve into the sciences and arts in attempts to unearth an answer amongst all the confusion.
Sight is entirely based upon supposition. From the moment we are brought into the world, and we glance dazedly around us for the first time, we are identifying and storing new knowledge as we rely on our past observations to provide a foundation of understanding. There is nothing unusual about this system, in fact it is quite ubiquitous among animals within the sensory worlds. “We... act not so much according to what is sensed, but to what is believed.” (Gregory, p. 11) Sight helps man build the assumption of an object. Because sight requires an assuming mind, we tend to make other assumptions that do not always prove true in the end.
We use our bank of previously discovered objects to constantly manipulate the world around us and test new ideas upon a set hypothesis. It is from sight that we can relate many previously unheard-of observations. Sometimes hypothesis and result get mixed up in incorrect assumptions or religious ‘It is so’ presumptions, but then again, these are the bitter instances which make history.
The Aborigines of Australia have a rather peculiar set of beliefs following what they call “The Dream Time”. During the Dream Time, it is said that the world was created, and that dreams can continue to create, even to this day. Dreams do create reality, if only by originating ideas. The complex world of intentions is huge in deciding--apart from natural occurrences--the flow of history. When nomads were looking for settlement, they unconsciously affected the possibilities of change by their intention.
Some Europeans suspected that there was a hidden connection between what we see and what is created. Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) was extremely distressed by the validity of everyday objects.12 He somehow had it in mind that when not being watched, an object would disappear altogether, until one turned around to glance at it again, that is. He had come to the conclusion that the world was entirely built upon conjecture and he didn’t like this one bit. So he, being a bishop after all, promptly instituted that objects do continue to exist because God continues to watch things while you turn your back.
Although Berkeley rather abruptly concluded this line of questioning of the visual reality, his point came across. We do not know what happens to an object when we turn our minds from it. There is really no way to tell, supposing we really pay no attention at all to it while we ignore it, we cannot do anything but conjecture, which completes this point. There is a paradigm of curiosity and no one can ever discover the answer, so, in conclusion, bias is all we have to go on. There is a certain insanity that Bishop Berkeley did possess and it was that he, originally, did not stick to the given assumptions of the world, he learned his lesson from the insecurity he acquired, and carefully stepped back towards the norm which most people never dare to question.
As humans become increasingly aware of howe we are creating our world by the way we view ourselves in it, we are faced with great opportunity in the midst of all the uncertainty. There is a certain irony in searching for knowledge when we can never be sure what assumed knowledge might be awry. I would suggest however, that knowledge in itself is not the point. The point is how discoveries affect the world after they are made. “[Human] awareness gives an entirely new measure of control over the environment. Man is the only animal to have made the transition to this new phase, where he can now, if he wishes, largely determine the lines which his physical, mental and social development should follow. It lies within his powers... not simply to record his history... but to shape it with a good understanding of the laws which govern change.” (Carrington, p. 168) Humans continue to lend bias to their viewpoints, beliefs and actions, and in turn create new changes for the future based on what they feel to be most essential and important... causing all range of new variations and developments to look forward to.
Our control over the environment is not an easy one to shoulder. We are responsible for many positive and negative things which have happened to the world as a whole. Up until the Agricultural Revolution, we were entirely at the mercy of the elements, but this revolution was a major turning point. We started to apply our observations to boost our status in the food chain. Instead of hunting for our survival, we decided that the time was right to settle down and keep a few plants and animals healthy in exchange for their product later on. We became farmers, and soon were doing much more than that. Because of sight and its effect on our clever manipulative minds, we were able to carve out of nature a cranny for ourselves... and as humans prospered, we left a mark of our civilization everywhere we went.
There is a desire in people to understand the workings of the universe, and color has been a frequent topic of inquiry. Many of the attempts to better understand have come to be known as religions, “Man at the dawn of civilization recognized that sunlight was essential to life. Color, being a manifestation of light, held divine meaning. Historical records of color show little interest in the physical nature of color, nor yet in it’s abstract beauty, but in a symbolism that attempted to resolve the strange workings of creation and give it personal and human meaning.” (Birren, p. 3) Understanding the nature of color is a large part of understanding the world, and it is through the study of color that we have come to better appreciate our place in the cosmos.
Seeing your hand and knowing it is yours is one level of vision, seeing a mountain and climbing it is still another, the third would be the stars, for though they are in your reach when it comes to sight, you can never touch them. The astrologers in Greece paid a great attention to this relationship13. In the same way, astrologers made an intuitive leap that tied the movements of the untouchable heavens to our own mysterious fate. Maybe though we cannot affect the stars through our movements, they can affect us by theirs.
Humans have always been searching for understanding through how we observe the world... how we see. There were quite a few times where it would seem impossible that a person would have any motivation to promote knowledge, “The eye has been studied14 for all of recorded history -- and perhaps before. In some ancient cultures, cataracts were removed from lenses with crude surgical instruments.. If the surgeon blinded a slave, he lost his hand; if he blinded a rich man, he could lose his life. These Surgeons must have been men of courage, not to mention steady hands.” (Sinclair, p. 2) It is very hard to imagine oneself in a situation like that of these noteworthy surgeons under Hammurabi’s Code. What things people will do to forward human comprehension!
Is it that all cells come together to speak as one through our lips, or that they in turn have mouths through which words are professed by even smaller beings ...and we are all part of a concentric pattern leading up to the great and mystical God? We can not know the answer to this question with any certainty, and this shakes us. In fact, it brings many to new areas of questioning and greatly influences, in and of itself, the larger turn of events we come to face. Having the ability to observe creates this wonderment for if we did not begin to understand what makes us up we would not be questioning further. It is from our observations that come additional inquiries that lead us to create new foundations of understanding (and biases), and still further inquiries.
Color and Vision are among the most devoutly appreciated things we possess. It is from these two that we find ourselves waking up to a beautiful day each morning, and it is from them that we may appreciate the full glory of civilizations past. Many have made time in their day to enjoy the luxuries of the eye and its subject. “The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world. Owing to the eye the soul is content to stay in its bodily prison, for without it such bodily prison is torture.” (Da Vinci, p. 110) There is quite a bond between man and vision, so much so that if a person were to try to integrate their world through sound, they’d have to close their eyes, whereas if they were to do so through sight they would not need to plug their ears.
We owe our perception of the world to vision and color. Cultural identity was paramount to the development of modern man. “Belief in the divine healing properties of color pervades all ancient symbolism, religious or otherwise. Obviously, man’s survival was beset by countless hazards. His was a struggle against visible and invisible forces, a trek out of misery and ignorance.” (Birren, p. 7) Through adapting to these challenges, humans have evolved to be as they are, primarily focused on vision and what we see. Art, color and culture in so many ways define what it is to be human, and visual cues such as international flags, uniforms and codes of dress have deeply influenced human history. Without vision, culture itself would be difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
~Conclusive Section~
Sight is the essence of Man. It makes him who he is and draws him into the web and experience of life. There is nothing else quite like sight to us, and that in itself is fascinating. It has fascinated many minds throughout time and still continues to puzzle us. We wonder who we are, and why we are separate from the animal kingdom. We grasp at dangling ideas, and just as quickly turn them away.
Color is the texture of our world. Without it we would have no mysteries, with it we are content to continue grasping and tossing ideas for eternity. “...The eye embraces the beauty of the whole world... It counsels and corrects all the arts of mankind... it is the prince of mathematics, and the sciences founded on it are absolutely certain.” (Da Vinci, p. 110)
Sight gives us a drive to better understand the mechanics of the world and has set us apart from other animals by giving us a sophisticated comprehension of the turn of events; of how past turns to present and then to future in the blink of an eye. With sight, we are given to understand the nature of consequence and connectivity of all actions and motives.
Human culture largely derives from vision. Culture relies on the passing of knowledge and customs from one generation to the next. Before there was speech, human ancestors picked up social knowledge by watching and mimicking others, in similar fashion to what orangutans and chimpanzees do today. Even in modern times, vision is primary in all forms of human learning, and much of what we know we have either read or seen or otherwise gathered through sight and color.
Color has brought us to where we are today and we continue to use it unconsciously as we make our way in the constant progression that is the human birthright. Color allows us to sense beyond our senses. We use colors we can see as a platform from which to reach towards colors we cannot see. This is how they are represented. We use scientific devices to benefit from all sensory worlds and we map them in colors that are visible to us and representative of them. Vision and color comprise the window through which we see the world. To see is to understand. The understanding brought by scientific inquiry is the understanding brought through extending our sense of vision. To expand our vision is to expand our world, and this is what makes our species so very unique.
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Aura
August 2006 
